The average office worker sends and receives approximately 121 emails every day.
While that sounds like a lot, it may shock you to know that 3 billion, yes billion, phishing emails are sent each day. This accounts for 1% of all email traffic.
What is a phishing email?
It is simply an email sent by cyber criminals that pretends to be from a trusted source, for example, Amazon, a delivery company, or your bank.
The aim of the email is to get you to click on a bad link. Maybe so they can install malware (malicious software) on your computer. Or to fool you into trying to log into a fake website; inadvertently giving away your login details.
The likelihood is that your team will each receive several phishing emails every single week so it is really important they know what the warning signs to look out for are.
Recent research revealed that PayPal was the most spoofed business in all financial phishing emails in 2021, accounting for a whopping 37.8% of attacks. Mastercard and American Express followed with 12.2% and 10% share of attacks.
This is because PayPal is so widely used – having 392 million active accounts – that scammers pretend to be the online payment giant.
At a glance, a typical phishing email can be easily mistaken for the real business it is replicating. It will ask the recipient to update their details or check for unauthorised activity. The concern and panic that someone may have breached their account can cause people to grant hackers access to their account.
Ironic, isn’t it?
Phishing is bad for anyone personally, but the results from the data breach of a business can be devastating.
It is absolutely vital that you educate all your people on the warning signs to look out for.
What are some of the phishing email warning signs to look out for?
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Always check the link you are being asked to follow. Hover your mouse over the link and look at the URL. Does it look suspicious? Is the business name spelt correctly?
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Check the address the email has been sent from. Is it a standard email address from the business or does it seem to look a little strange?
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Pay close attention to the content of the email too. Emails from scammers will likely contain grammatical mistakes. they might not address you by name, and the structure of the email may be slightly different from a genuine email from that company.
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Trust your gut feeling. You might have suspicions that it is not quite right but are unable to say why. Don’t ignore that nagging feeling.
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If you are ever unsure, go to your browser and type in the real website address, then log into your account that way.
Just how protected do you think your business is? Are you confident that all members of your team would spot a scam before clicking a link?
We would love to help you review your data security and cyber-crime awareness training. Get in touch.
